Peking opera master talks about Tibet at Boao

08:38, April 12, 2013

"We need to make Tibet known to the outside world. We should seize every opportunity to explain the real situations of Tibet and remove the misunderstandings." said Sun Ping, China's famous Peking opera performer in an exclusive interview with the China Tibet Online at Boao Forum 2013 on April 7.

She received our interview shortly after attending the Boao Dialogue entitled "Public diplomacy and cross-cultural communication" as a panelist.

Sun Ping has been dedicated to the popularization of Peking Opera to the rest of the world. During her close contact with the west countries, she has found that "the majority of westerners do not have a clear understanding of what is called the 'Tibet issue', let alone the emancipation of serfs by the Chinese government. They have been misled to hold the opinion that China invaded an ‘independent’ Tibet, oppressing both Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism and destroying Tibetan culture. China’s efforts to communicate a real Tibet to outside world are almost in vain."

She thought "Instead of traditional propaganda, westerners are more inclined to believe equal and humanitarian communications". She told us an anecdote of her daughter.

Her daughter grew up in the United States. She was working as an intern at CNN Hong Kong when the "3.14" Lhasa Riots incident happened. One day, the CEO of Asia Pacific talked to her that if China allowed Tibet to be independent, there would be no problem at all.

"Impossible. It is like bringing Martin Luther King back to life and making him say‘hey bros let us go back to be slaves of the whites'. Her analogy made a sense. Later she pointed to the bowl and said, “In Tibet those are made of human skulls before Tibet is emancipated.”

The CEO was surprised at her daughter's explanation and started to know more about the history of Tibet. This makes Sun Ping realize that to communicate using the audiences’ mindset woks better in international exchanges.

Sun Ping added that "Efforts by the government alone is not enough to have our voice heard in the global area. The era of public diplomacy has come. If you do not express yourself, you give others a chance to represent you."